Personnel consultant Bob Clark tried to retire once before but it did not work out well when he and wife Jan went on their overseas trip. This time, Mr Clark has got his plans in place, he tells business editor Dene Mackenzie.
Two minutes into his retirement interview with the Otago Daily Times, Bob Clark's phone starts up with Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry, Be Happy ring tone.
And that pretty much sums up the attitude of the Otago personnel consultant and, latterly, the representative of thousands of New Zealand sporting clubs.
Sporting clubs and hundreds of overseas families have plenty to thank Mr Clark for, as he helped the former overcome some difficult periods with licensing laws and red tape and the latter arrived in New Zealand to work to find preparatory work had been carried out so they fitted into their respective communities.
The Otago Daily Times bumped into Mr Clark at the Omakau Races earlier this year, wandering between the public bar and the hospitality tents.
Asked what he was doing, he characteristically laughed and said changes to the licensing laws meant the hours that alcohol could be served and consumed at the race meeting had been reduced.
He advised the club that someone needed to hold the licence for the day to meet legal requirements.
The club nominated Mr Clark and he found himself attending the race meeting in an official capacity.
Mr Clark, who now lives in Alexandra with his wife Jan, is not one to stand back and let others do the work.
In nearly every organisation he has been involved in, he quickly moves through holding every office available, including becoming president or chairman.
Those have included the Green Island Rugby Club, the Regent Theatre Trust, his Rotary club and the St Clair Bowling Club.
Just because he is talking about retirement, does not mean he will stop, he says.
"My great love is helping people, volunteering and I will be doing plenty of that. Helping people is what I do.''
Mr Clark started in the personnel business in 1982.
He was working for ACC as a safety adviser and was sent to university to do a course.
"I was not the university type. I was an engineer, originally. I got a B plus in behavioural science, part of the personnel side of the course. It was a boring paper but I did well. That's what got me into it.''
After leaving ACC, he joined Key Personnel but left after five years to set up his own business, Clark Personnel.
Acknowledged as an early adopter, Mr Clark was one of the first in New Zealand to introduce industrial temps into the workplace.
When Dunedin firm Sims Engineering was refurbishing the Interisland ferries, Mr Clark sourced overseas staff to help meet requirements.
His overseas business grew from there.
"This was trucking along nicely until 1987 and the sharemarket crash. Before then, if a person walked in looking for a job you knew already where they worked and all their skills.
"The mass redundancies changed everything. We started putting everything on computer.''
In 1999, Mr Clark sold his business to an American firm and he formed Clark Consulting with the aim of eventually working from home.
He and Mrs Clark planned an overseas trip as something of a retirement present but when Mr Clark told some of his clients he was off on a trip, they came back with a list of staff they needed him to find.
"We went on holiday with 36 vacancies for tradespeople in Otago, much to the disapproval of my wife, as I was meant to be on holiday.''
On their arrival in London, Mr Clark sought out immigration agents to see what they knew about Otago.
Embarrassingly, most of them could not pass a test if they tried, he said. All they knew about New Zealand was Auckland.
He went back three times to recruit people for Dunedin and Otago, not restricting his search to just tradespeople.
Vets and doctors were also on the list of must-haves.
His search extended to Germany, where he received help from the government to hold recruitment workshops.
There, he was faced with queues of people seeking jobs overseas as the German economy faltered and social welfare payments dried up.
"We were selling New Zealand as much as Otago because we were competing with Australia, which was also seeking tradespeople. A lot of Europeans ended up in Perth.''
Many families arrived and Mr Clark made sure they were fitted into their respective communities as much as possible.
English people were renowned for bringing their pets and he was staggered by the amount of money spent bringing cats and dogs to New Zealand.
Some families did not fit into Central Otago as it was too quiet for them and they moved to another centre.
Of the hundreds of families he brought to New Zealand, only two went back to England and one of those families returned when they found life difficult back at home, he said.
"We didn't bring them in and forget about them. We worked with them to get them settled, finding school and services they needed. Some of the kids were 8 or 9 when they arrived. I have been to their citizenship ceremonies, parties and family events. Our involvement never ends.''
Mr Clark finally made the decision to "officially'' stop work two years ago and to ensure he met his self-imposed timetable, he let his licences lapse.
When Clark Consulting was established, Mr Clark contracted himself to the company for four days a week and became chief executive of Sporting Clubs Association of New Zealand, something he estimated would take a few hours a week.
Eventually, the sporting clubs job overtook the personnel side of his business.
The job expanded and involved mainly helping volunteers deal with compliance issues, liquor licensing, gambling machines, rates remission and smokefree legislation.
Even working out the job description for a greenkeeper became part of his duties.
"The role I took on involved chewing the ears of politicians on behalf of the clubs.''
The role mushroomed when the clubs had to renew their liquor licences but tighter drink-driving rules meant fewer clubs were involved in selling alcohol, he said.
The sports club scene had changed dramatically since he was young.
Club responsibilities had grown and requirements were frequently added and legislation was constantly changed.
Mr Clark said his role was to prepare and advise members of the changes and to provide guidance as needed to work through those matters.
The sports scene was continuing to change and an article this week about the Millers Flat Bowling Club closing,in part because it could not find someone for its greens, was a case in point.
Mr Clark supported sports clubs combining to make better use of existing facilities.
Simpson Park, in Lawrence, was a case in point.
Five or six organisations used the facilities, making better use of the asset.
The merger of some bowling clubs threw up some problems for officials who thought their buildings were worth a lot of money when often they were on leased ground and not worth much at all, he said.
There was a lack of young people playing sport between the ages of 16 and 20.
It was hard to hold people in sport when there was so much else happening at that age, he said.
There was no silver bullet to solve the problem and Mr Clark had seen a lot of pressure on clubs facing ageing memberships.
He was advocating more mergers of smaller clubs and sharing facilities to help retain as many members as possible.
"There is an attitude of ‘I'm not leaving until I am the last one left' in some clubs.
"It's a fact of life.
"The good days are gone and right throughout New Zealand, it is the same problem.''
Asked what he would miss the most when he leaves both the personnel industry and representing sporting clubs, Mr Clark said it was the people he had dealt with.
People had always been number one for him and he liked to do business face-to-face.
He had never been one for hiding behind a computer screen.
When asked what the hardest part of the job had been, he recalled when he first started working from home.
Although it only took seconds to walk down the stairs to his home office in St Clair, he happily sat for hours doing nothing but looking out of the window watching the St Clair Esplanade being upgraded, particularly the diggers in the water.
Eventually, he had to change his desk so he faced the wall. Later, he changed it to a side on view so he could still work but maintain a view of the beach.
THE CLARK FILE
Bob Clark (65)
Married to: Jan, with two adult daughters and four grandchildren.
Educated in: Cromwell and Dunedin.
Worked as: An engineer and at ACC before becoming a personnel consultant. Formed his own business in 1987. Sold the business to American interests in 1999 and established Clark Consulting.
Became: Chief executive of Sporting Clubs Association of New Zealand in 2000.
Hobbies include: Sport and family and helping people solve problems.
